Finding him compliant, I said, 'O great Genie, truly the search of my
life has been to discover him that is, my father, and how I was left in
the wilderness. There 's no peace for me, nor understanding the word of
love, till I hear by whom I was left a babe on the bosom of a dead
mother.'

He exclaimed, and his eyes twinkled, ''Tis that? that shalt thou know in
a span of time. O my mistress, hast thou seen the birds of Goorelka? Thy
father Feshnavat is among them, perched like a bird.'

So I cried, 'And tell me how he may be disenchanted.'

He said, 'Swear first to be mine unreluctantly.'

Then I said, 'What is thy oath?'

He answered, 'I swear, when I swear, by the Identical.'

Thereupon I questioned him concerning the Identical, what it was; and he,
not suspecting, revealed to me the mighty hair in his head now in the
head of Shagpat, even that. So I swore by that to give myself to the
possessor of the Identical, and flattered him. Then said he, 'O lovely
damsel, I am truly one of the most powerful of the Genii; yet am I in
bondage to that sorceress Goorelka by reason of a ring she holdeth; and
could I get that ring from her and be slave to nothing mortal an hour, I
could light creation as a torch, and broil the inhabitants of earth at
one fire.'

I thought, 'That ring is known to me!' And he continued, 'Surely I cannot
assist thee in this work other than by revealing the means of
disenchantment, and it is to keep the birds laughing uninterruptedly an
hour; then are they men again, and take the forms of men that are
laughers--I know not why.'

So I cried, ''Tis well! carry me back to Oolb.'

Then the Genie lifted me into the air, and ceased not speeding rapidly
through it, till I was on the roof of the house of Ravaloke. O sweet
youth! moon of my soul! from that time to the disenchantment of
Feshnavat, I pored over my books, trying experiments in magic, dreadful
ones, hunting for talismans to countervail Goorelka; but her power was
great, and 'twas not in me to get her away from the birds one hour to
free them. On a certain occasion I had stolen to them, and kept them
laughing with stories of man to within an instant of the hour; and they
were laughing exultingly with the easy happy laugh of them that perceive
deliverance sure, when she burst in and beat them even to the door of
death. I saw too in her eyes, that glowed like the eyes of wild cats in
the dark, she suspected me, and I called Allah to aid the j